


The Tempest Night

by traptrixnepenthes



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24900574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traptrixnepenthes/pseuds/traptrixnepenthes
Summary: "I'll prove you don't have to be afraid."Something about the look in his eyes and the confidence in his voice--the way he could say things like they were just simple facts, no matter how outrageous they were, as if they were true just becausehewas the one saying them--made Genis believe him. He made himself relax, once again uncurling from his position, and this time standing up to meet him. "...Alright."--------two kids confide in each other about secret fears, and then proceed to do something incredibly stupid.
Relationships: Genis Sage & Mithos Yggdrasill, Genis Sage/Mithos Yggdrasill
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	The Tempest Night

**Author's Note:**

> played tales of symphonia last month and developed worms in my brain for mithos yggdrasill. expect more content, i'm still ironing out how to write him. expect so much more content
> 
> i wrote and had to format this whole thing on mobile so that was fun!

Genis didn't like storms. It wasn't like he was _afraid_ of them or anything, and he definitely didn't think the wind roaring outside Altessa's house or the rain pounding at the mountainside were _scary_. Even though he knew full well that this combination of weather could result in a landslide and doom them all by trapping them inside this house that had been carved into the very mountain that would collapse on them, like a fantasy novel's self-fulfilling prophecy, he was _not_ scared.

He was curled up in Altessa's dining room, keeping an eye on the weather outside for a completely different reason. He just couldn't sleep, and if he stayed in the guest room where everyone else was he might accidentally wake one of them up somehow. There wasn't anything more or less to it. It was _fine_.

Lightning flashed in the night, throwing long shadows over the floor. A few seconds later, thunder crashed and Genis curled tighter into his seat. How was anyone _else_ sleeping through this?

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This was fine. Iselia'd had its fair share of storms too, and Altessa's was definitely a much sturdier place to be during one than his and Raine's old wooden house. But at the same time, it felt a lot _less_ sturdy--he was way too old now to go waking his sister up because of a little wind and rain, but it had been nice to have his own bed to hide in until it passed, and to know that if anything happened, she was just a couple feet away.

"It's fine," he mumbled, years of magical theory and application running through his head. "Even if there's a landslide, I can use magic to move it out of the way. Even if there's a flood, I can freeze it. Even if the wind blows the trees out of the ground, I can--"

"Genis?"

Genis yelped and whirled around--only to see that the person who had interrupted him was just Mithos. His friend's sky-blue eyes--and Goddess Martel, did he miss the clear sky right now--were quizzical, and his sunshine hair-- _Goddess Martel, did he miss the sun_ \--framed his face, tilted just a little to one side. "...Are you okay, Genis?"

"I'm...fine." He made himself uncurl from his balled-up position, stretching out his legs and arms until he was properly sitting in his chair again. "I just couldn't get to sleep."

"The storm is pretty loud." Mithos smiled, and that made it a little easier to not curl up again. "Can I sit with you?"

"Of course you can." Mithos sat down on the chair next to him, scooting the stone-hewn seat over a bit. "I guess you couldn't sleep either?"

"Yeah." Unlike himself, Mithos seemed to be completely unfazed by the storm raging outside. He was calm, like he always was, like nothing could ever get under his skin. And maybe nothing could anymore, having survived his parents and sister passing, and Ozette being destroyed by angels. Mithos was so strong, compared to Genis--only one of them was getting worked up about the storm outside, after all. "I haven't been able to sleep very well lately, so it's nice to see you're awake too."

"...It's definitely nice not to be alone right now. Not that I'm scared or anything." Mithos glanced over at him and raised an eyebrow, and Genis knew he'd been caught. "I, uh, I just don't like being alone."

"...You don't have to lie about it if you're scared." Mithos moved his chair a little bit closer. "You trust me, right? I promise I won't make fun of you."

Genis let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He did trust Mithos to not tease him about it, not like how Lloyd or his sister would, but it was still hard to be honest about it. "...Really?"

"Really. I won't ever lie to you." Mithos was so kind, and as if he were casting a healing spell, Genis could feel himself relaxing just from talking to him. He really was something special. "...Although I am a bit surprised. You're on a journey to save the worlds and you go out and fight such powerful monsters, I wouldn't have expected you to be scared of storms."

It was hard not needing to deny it, the way that he would've if Raine or Lloyd had been saying it. From them it would've been teasing or maybe smothering--as Raine was prone to being when she was worried--and he knew that underneath that they both cared for him a lot, but it was still different to hear someone saying it _sincerely_. "I mean, monsters aren't really that scary. They're big and stuff but it doesn't take much effort to take care of them with magic. It's not like I can do anything about a storm."

"I suppose that's true. But you're always talking about how dangerous it is and how it isn't safe for me to go along with you...so you've always seemed very brave to me." Mithos stared out the window, into the dark and stormy night. "Facing off against opponents like angels even if you can't win, because you want to save the world… I think you're very brave."

"...I think you're pushing it a little." But the praise was still making him a bit embarrassed. "I'm really just following Lloyd around. I mean, if I really was brave, I wouldn't be scared of a stupid thing like storms."

"I don't think it's stupid."

"It _is_ stupid."

Mithos didn't respond, and Genis wished he could backpedal--that was the closest they'd ever had to an argument, and Mithos was just trying to make him feel better. _Idiot_.

"...Genis, want to hear a secret?"

"Huh?"

"No one but my sister knows this, but… I'm scared of fish."

Genis blinked and looked over at his friend, who was now sitting up perfectly straight, hands on his knees, eyes on the wall. Was he...nervous? Embarrassed? "...Fish? What's so scary about fish?"

"When Mar--my sister caught them for us to eat, she would bring them back alive so they'd be as fresh as possible." Mithos squeezed his hands into fists. "I _hate_ how their eyes look. They're so blank, and it always felt like they were staring at me no matter where I went. And since they were still alive they'd flop around and the noises were so…" Mithos shuddered, and if it had been Lloyd telling him this, Genis would've laughed at him, but instead he wanted to grab his hand and tell him it was okay. "I used to have nightmares about them. _That's_ a stupid fear."

"No it isn't! I mean, if you think it's scary, then…" Mithos looked at him and smiled, just a little. "...Okay, fine. Point taken. But don't tell anyone."

"As long as you won't tell anyone about mine. Like I said, you really _are_ \--"

Lightning flashed through the window, and a few moments later, thunder crashed again. Genis squeaked, immediately curling back into a ball, hiding his face on his knees. Even with Mithos so close by he still couldn't help trying to squeeze himself into being as small a target as he could--if lightning was going to hit anything it'd hit one of the trees around where Ozette used to stand or on the other side of the river, but what if--

"Genis, it's okay."

He heard Mithos's voice, calm and close, but he just shoved his face down harder. Possibilities and calculations and what-ifs were swirling in his head so loudly he almost couldn't even make out the sound of the wind and rain over the blood rushing in his head, and if Mithos said anything else, he didn't hear it. Genis was entirely wrapped up in his own head, and it was safer here where he could calculate just how likely every catastrophe he could imagine was.

He felt a warm hand on his arm, and that startled him out of his thoughts. He looked up, and Mithos was standing in front of him, looking back at him; it was his hand on Genis's arm. "It's _okay_ , Genis. I promise."

"But--"

"I'll prove you don't have to be afraid."

Something about the look in his eyes and the confidence in his voice--the way he could say things like they were just simple facts, no matter how outrageous they were, as if they were true just because _he_ was the one saying them--made Genis believe him. He made himself relax, once again uncurling from his position, and this time standing up to meet him. "...Alright."

Mithos smiled, and then grabbed Genis's hand and started pulling him to the front door. "W-wait a second! It's way too dangerous to go out there, the lightning--"

"We'll be safe." Again, he said it like it was just a simple fact. Of _course_ they were going to be safe. All the calculations Genis's nerves had been running in his head were wrong. "You know how to track lightning strikes, don't you?"

"...The seconds between the lightning and the thunder." This was basic, one of the first things Raine had taught him when she realized he had a budding fear of storms. "The center of the storm is still a ways off."

"We'll be safe," Mithos repeated, the same conviction in his voice. "Let's go."

Genis hesitated, but then he nodded. It wasn't the first time he'd gotten dragged around for a crazy plan, even if this time he didn't know exactly what the plan was--when it came to Lloyd's plans, Genis was usually the one that made them work, not the other way around. Mithos opened the front door and the wind blew some rain inside--the walls were thick enough to be well insulated, and Genis shivered a little as he followed his friend outside.

It was raining hard, but not as hard as it had sounded from inside. That definitely made this a little less terrifying--the chances of a freak landslide happening felt a lot lower now. Mithos stayed at the front, leading Genis down the slope that led to Altessa's home, and took him farther out into the field, until they could see where the river's banks were flooded.

Both of them were completely soaked by the time Mithos stopped walking, and Genis swiped his hair out of his face. Despite how cold the wind and rain were, Mithos's hand was still vibrantly warm, and he squeezed it a little tighter. "It's pretty chilly out."

"Is it?" With his free hand, Mithos tucked his blond hair behind one pointed ear, completely unconcerned by the chill despite his light clothing. It made sense, Genis supposed, since his friend had lived near Ozette and was probably used to its weather. "But the storm isn't nearly as bad now that you're out in it, right?"

He was right. The wind wasn't nearly as loud, and the rain didn't seem as threatening. The clouds above still rumbled, but now that he could hear the smaller rolls of thunder and see the sparks of lightning jumping in the sky, maybe the bigger ones wouldn't be so scary, either. The way the river was rising was concerning, but Altessa's was far enough away and high enough up that it...probably wouldn't be a problem. "...A little."

"Water from the oceans and lakes evaporates and turns into clouds, and when there's too much water in the clouds, it falls as rain or snow." Genis knew all that, of course; he'd taught himself everything he could learn about weather patterns to try and get over his fear, but it had mostly backfired. The words coming from Mithos, though, was a lot more soothing than any book had ever been. "If winds are strong enough, there'll be enough friction in the clouds to make sparks, and that's lightning."

"...And thunder is just the sound lightning makes. We see lightning before we hear thunder because light travels faster than sound." Right. This was more calming than trying to calculate how likely it was to get struck by lightning. Instead of that, just remembering the methods of how the world worked was good enough.

"It can be influenced by big shifts in mana, but unless someone was intentionally trying to use lightning magic or Volt was trying to do something, there's nothing you and I could do to change what's happening." Mithos looked at him, his eyes bright, and he smiled wide. In the near-darkness of the night storm, his pale hair made him look almost ghostly. "Which is why you're going to cast some lightning magic, and see it's really nothing to be scared of."

"Wh--" Genis shook his head, and rain scattered off of him. "How does _that_ make sense?"

"You're going to prove to yourself it's fine. Doing something like this and coming out okay means you won't have to worry again, right?"

"I--I guess so, but..."

"It'll be okay, Genis," Mithos said, again in that plainly confident tone of voice. "You trust me, don't you?"

"I _do_ , but--" But this was a little farther than Genis trusted _anyone_ , even Lloyd. Sure, he was easily roped into crazy and dangerous plans, and this wasn't much crazier than the one that had started them on this adventure in the first place, but… "...Oh, fine! I'll prove to you why I'm the best mage in Iselia!"

Mithos nodded and squeezed his hand. At the very least, the fact that they'd be together even through this made it feel a little less stupid. Genis took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

One of the benefits of his half-elven blood was the ability to feel the mana that swirled through the world. Sylvarant was definitely the declining world in comparison to Tethe'alla, since even ignoring the lightning arcing above them in the clouds, the air felt like it was charged with energy. After having spent his whole life manipulating the scarce Sylvaranti mana, casting even complicated spells in Tethe'alla felt more simple than even the most basic fire magic, and here in the storm, it was like the land itself was crackling with untapped energy for some reckless mage to just reach out and use it.

He didn't have his kendama, he'd left it inside with the rest of his stuff when Mithos had dragged him out here. The wind and rain should've made it hard to focus, even if he did have it with him, but the ambient mana was so potent that he felt like he could just reach out his hand and find a strand of it to turn into a bolt of lightning. Mithos's hand in his, still so warm, was enough of a focus in the mana-rich land of Tethe'alla, and it was the easiest thing in the world for Genis to find a few sparks in the clouds that weren't quite strong enough to become lightning and nudge them in the right direction.

In the next few moments, several things happened.

Genis had never attempted to handle mana in a storm before, in Sylvarant or Tethe'alla, and he failed to adjust for the difference. His intended target for the bolt had been a tree on the other side of the river, far away from where he and Mithos were standing, but he could feel his control not being _quite_ enough to handle just how much mana there was--and he could feel the branches of magic that were supposed to drag the lightning down from the sky coming from _him_ , not his target.

Mithos had to be able to feel it too, the way that the mana was coiling around them like a snake preparing to strike. He was a half-elf too, after all. Genis was about to shove his friend as far as he could so he wouldn't get hit in the blast--there wasn't even a bit of worry for himself, just for Mithos--when he saw Mithos make some sort of small gesture with his hand, and then the magic around them was just...gone.

Before Genis could process what had just happened, lightning struck a very specific tree on the other side of the riverbank, the very one he'd originally aimed for, and the thunder was almost deafening. He clung to Mithos's hand--to Mithos, having at some point clutched his whole arm to his chest--and his heart was pounding worse than it had been back in Altessa's when his brain was running doomsday calculations, but in the aftermath, the wind and rain practically silent in comparison to the thunder, Mithos just said, "See? You did it."

"I did…?" No, that couldn't have been right. Genis had messed up, and things had been about to end horribly, and then they just...hadn't. "Mithos, didn't you do something?"

Mithos shook his head. "I'm a lot better with light magic than lightning magic. They're almost nothing alike."

"It felt like…" What had it felt like? It was just there, and then it wasn't. "It felt like something moved the magic."

"You must be a lot better than you thought you were!" Mithos still sounded calmly cheerful, which sounded just plain weird after their near-death experience, and Genis slowly let go of his arm. Not his hand, though. His heart was still pounding too hard to let go of what he was squeezing for dear life. "You really are a genius."

Genis had absolutely no idea what had actually happened there. Even if Mithos had done something, it wasn't like a small gesture with no accompanying incantation or even a focus would've done something, especially not something as big as moving the center of an entire spell. That was the kind of thing even hundreds-of-years old mages couldn't do. Maybe he really had somehow...moved his spell on his own. "...Whatever that was, I definitely do _not_ want to try doing that again."

Mithos laughed. "I don't think there's anyone who would want to do that again. But you feel better now, right? You're probably a lot more in tune with how the storm's mana is moving now."

He was right--before he'd tried that, Genis had certainly been _aware_ of the mana, but now that he'd tried manipulating it himself, he could feel how the wind and rain were playing tag with one another through the sky, and how the clouds were just a place for the lightning to sleep. It didn't want to jump from its bed to the ground, even though he'd forced it to. It wasn't going to fall around here again unless there was somewhere better than the clouds to rest. He could feel all this now so clearly, in a way he never had been before. But if Mithos knew that this was what was going to happen… "...Have you tried doing this before?"

Mithos just grinned, a cheerfully petulant smile that told Genis everything he needed to know. "Let's get back now. I bet you're more than tired enough to get to sleep now."

"Well...true." His nerves from earlier and the adrenaline from the almost-failed spell probably would've been enough to knock out _Lloyd_ , much less Genis, who didn't have nearly as much stamina. "Yeah. Let's go back...wait, ugh."

"Is something wrong?"

"Raine's gonna be _so_ mad if she finds out I was out in the storm. I have no idea how I'm gonna dry off…"

"I'll get you a change of clothes, don't worry." Already, Mithos was leading Genis back to the house--from here, he could even feel now how the tree roots and firm earth were proud of keeping this house safe. No landslides were going to happen here. "You should get to sleep soon."

Too much had happened for Genis to think more about what had happened. "Yeah… You don't seem tired at all, though."

Mithos didn't respond to that, but maybe he just hadn't heard.

They returned to the house, their clothes and hair dripping onto the floor, and as promised Mithos ducked into the room Altessa was lending him and came out with an extra set of sleepclothes and bewilderingly dry hair. He placed the clothes on one of the chairs and then raised a hand to the air, making some gestures like he was pulling on strings. Threads of mana moved with his hand, and Genis felt the rainwater being pulled out of his hair, like he'd never gone outside at all. No incantation, no focus, just…?

"You seem like you're about to fall asleep on your feet," Mithos said, still so simply confident, "so I won't be surprised if you don't remember this tomorrow. You should get changed and go to bed."

Genis just nodded. Too much had happened. He didn't have enough brainpower to try and figure out how Mithos was doing that. "Um...thank you."

"Of course. We _are_ friends."

"Next time I make dinner here, it's gonna be fish, and you're going to help."

Mithos laughed, and Genis supposed that regardless of how weird this all was, if Mithos was smiling, it was fine. "That sounds fair. I'll remember that."

Genis changed and dried off, and Mithos hung his clothes off the mantle of the fireplace to dry. His head was spinning, and Mithos followed after him as he went to bed, just to make sure he didn't fall on the way there or something. "...Goodnight, Mithos."

"Goodnight, Genis. Sleep well."

The sound of the rain was soothing now instead of terrifying, and the light from the fireplace flickered behind them. Mithos still didn't look tired. "Do you think you'll be able to sleep soon? I can stay up a little longer…"

"I think Raine'll be upset if you stay up all night, too. Don't worry about me."

Something about this situation felt familiar, like Genis had encountered it earlier on the journey, but he couldn't quite place what it was. "If anything happens, you can wake me up, okay?"

"Okay. But you should really get some sleep now."

"Yeah, yeah. You're starting to sound like Colette."

Mithos went back to the fireplace, and Genis went to bed. Despite how hard the beds were which always contributed to him having a hard time sleeping here, he fell asleep almost instantly--just a few moments after recalling that Colette hadn't been able to sleep or feel anything either, as an angel.


End file.
